Whitacre accepted 'responsibility' from day one to further sports in SA

Updated 10:33 pm, Saturday, February 2, 2013

As an executive at AT&T, Ed Whitacre influenced much of the area sports landscape. AT&T is title sponsor of the Champions Tour event here and has the naming rights to the Spurs’ home.

As an executive at AT&T, Ed Whitacre influenced much of the area sports landscape. AT&T is title sponsor of the Champions Tour event here and has the naming rights to the Spurs’ home.

Photo: Billy Calzada, San Antonio Express-News

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Inductee Ed Whitacre, former CEO of General Motors and AT&T, speaks during a ceremony where the San Antonio Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2013 was announced with members former Spur Larry Kenon, golfer Joe Conrad, and former MLB pitcher Norm Charlton, at The Dominion Country Club on Monday, Oct. 15, 2012.

Inductee Ed Whitacre, former CEO of General Motors and AT&T, speaks during a ceremony where the San Antonio Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2013 was announced with members former Spur Larry Kenon, golfer Joe

Whitacre accepted 'responsibility' from day one to further sports in SA

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Ed Whitacre, CEO of Southwestern Bell Corp., had scarcely settled into his office chair after moving to San Antonio in 1993 when the phone rang. USAA chairman Robert McDermott, a good friend, was on the line.

There was an emergency.

“I'd been here one day,” Whitacre, 71, recalled recently. “He said, 'The Spurs are leaving, the team is going to be sold and we have to do something now — and it's you and me, Ed.'”

What happened next — the men put together an ownership group to retain the franchise locally — was the first entry in what has become a remarkable timeline of impact by Whitacre on the city's sports landscape.

“Yeah, that sort of saved the Spurs,” said Whitacre, leaning back in his office chair 20 years later. “They wouldn't be here without that.”

He chuckled. “And that was just Day 1.”

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On Feb. 15, Whitacre will celebrate another day in that rich history when he is inducted into the San Antonio Sports Hall of Fame.

Whitacre was selected thanks to a tenure locally that has included making an impact on everything from professional golf to college football.

As the leader of SBC, then AT&T after engineering its acquisition in 2005, Whitacre used his notable influence to champion San Antonio's hopes on a variety of levels. He funded the city's bid for the 2007 Pan Am Games. He also swayed the PGA Tour in helping salvage the reeling Texas Open in 2001 and teamed with Marriott to spearhead construction of TPC San Antonio.

“The nice thing about Ed being in the Sports Hall of Fame is he gets in without having to hit a 95 mph fastball or deliver one,” said former AT&T exec Jim Callaway, who has known Whitacre for more than 30 years. “He did what he does best — made the right decisions for the company and the city of San Antonio.”

The imprint of it is evident throughout the area.

AT&T is title sponsor of the city's annual Champions Tour stop and of TPC San Antonio's exclusive layouts. The company also holds naming rights to the Spurs' home arena.

“I guess I've been on the periphery and done some things,” said Whitacre, whose recent résumé includes a rebuilding job as CEO of financially reeling General Motors. He left that post in 2010. “This is a great town, a good town for us to do business in. It's a great place to be.

“You can't not act on things like the Spurs, the golf tournaments, the AT&T arenas. You have a responsibility to do that.”

Red McCombs, who sold the Spurs to a group headed by current owner Peter Holt in 1993, noticed Whitacre's civic commitment shortly after Whitacre relocated SBC to San Antonio from St. Louis that year.

“Getting things accomplished in this community, when Ed came to town he brought a record with him,” McCombs said. “He did all he could do for San Antonio at any time.”

For Whitacre, that stubborn focus was forged as a small-town athlete in Ennis. Growing up in a town that at the time had only 4,000 residents, the lanky athlete competed in football, basketball and baseball, his favorite sport at the time. He majored in industrial engineering at Texas Tech.

“Being such a poor athlete, I was able to get by,” Whitacre said. “I'm coordinated, I can walk, but I've always had a passion for (sports). I've always played athletics and wondered what it would be like to be good.”

Instead, he's made it awfully good for San Antonio sports, often as the quiet muscle in the background.

“It's Ed's style,” said Callaway, who recently retired as AT&T's senior executive vice president. “He's quiet, but he's made the bold moves and certainly made his impact.”

The first move, when he picked up the phone and found McDermott on the other end, may have been the most significant.

“There's some satisfaction in that, you bet,” Whitacre said. “Not a whole lot of people know, and that's OK. I can step back and say I had something to do with all that, and that's good.